The paper by Krutarth M. Kamani and Simon A. Rogers explores the transition from solid-like to liquid-like behavior in soft materials, a phenomenon known as yielding. The authors introduce the concept of "brittleness" as a parameter that quantifies the extent to which a material yields abruptly or gradually. They develop a continuum model for yield stress materials that incorporates this brittleness factor, which modifies the contribution of elastic deformation to plastic deformation. The model successfully predicts a range of yielding behaviors observed in various soft materials, including stress overshoots in steady shear startup tests, delayed yielding in creep experiments, and steep increases in loss modulus during oscillatory amplitude sweeps. The study highlights the importance of brittleness in determining the rate of yielding and provides a tool for understanding and predicting the mechanical behavior of soft materials under different loading conditions. The findings have implications for the design of materials used in industrial, environmental, and biomedical applications.The paper by Krutarth M. Kamani and Simon A. Rogers explores the transition from solid-like to liquid-like behavior in soft materials, a phenomenon known as yielding. The authors introduce the concept of "brittleness" as a parameter that quantifies the extent to which a material yields abruptly or gradually. They develop a continuum model for yield stress materials that incorporates this brittleness factor, which modifies the contribution of elastic deformation to plastic deformation. The model successfully predicts a range of yielding behaviors observed in various soft materials, including stress overshoots in steady shear startup tests, delayed yielding in creep experiments, and steep increases in loss modulus during oscillatory amplitude sweeps. The study highlights the importance of brittleness in determining the rate of yielding and provides a tool for understanding and predicting the mechanical behavior of soft materials under different loading conditions. The findings have implications for the design of materials used in industrial, environmental, and biomedical applications.